Monday, October 27, 2008

Shakespearean Connections Lead to Alternate Soundtrack

A Midsummer Night's Dream. Dir. J. Stuart Blackton and Charles Kent. Perf. William V. Ranous, Maurice Costello, Walter Ackerman, Julia Swayne Gordon, Rose Tapley, Gladys Hulette, Charles Chapman, Helene Costello, and Dolores Costello. Vitagraph Company of America. 1909. Silent Shakespeare. DVD. Image Entertainment, 2000.

Fuchs, Dana, et al. “Dear Prudence.” Across the Universe. Interscope Records, 2007.

Yes, this is something of a stop-gap post, but it does have Shakespearean connections.  The primary motive was to get this file off my computer so I have space for other things, but I also was thinking about Across the Universe's director, Julie Taymor.  The film is extremely interesting, particularly in how exceptionally visual it is.  The images and the music are what drive the film—not the plot (which is more interesting to a Beatles devotee than to the general popualce).  In that, it's very much like a silent film!  And Julie Taymore also directed Titus, the film version of Titus Andronicus that starred Anthony Hopkins.  That film, too, is intensely (perhaps too intensely!) visual.

All of that gives the connections that justify re-posting this film clip with the alternate soundtrack.  And it frees up space on my computer, after all.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, this clip is temporarily (or permanently) unavailable.

Thank you for your understanding.

—The Management


Links: The Film at IMDB.
Click below to purchase the film from amazon.com
(and to support Bardfilm as you do so).




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Bardfilm is normally written as one word, though it can also be found under a search for "Bard Film Blog." Bardfilm is a Shakespeare blog (admittedly, one of many Shakespeare blogs), and it is dedicated to commentary on films (Shakespeare movies, The Shakespeare Movie, Shakespeare on television, Shakespeare at the cinema), plays, and other matter related to Shakespeare (allusions to Shakespeare in pop culture, quotes from Shakespeare in popular culture, quotations that come from Shakespeare, et cetera).

Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Shakespeare's works are from the following edition:
Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. 2nd ed. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
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